Converting Fears to Confidence

Over the past week, Andy and I have spoken at a variety events including:
- a professional development session on social media tools for staff and faculty at Algonquin College;
- a presentation on personal branding for the Algonquin Alumni Association:
- a case study presentation on WhyHire.me at McGraw-Hill Ryerson’s What Really Works: Strategies to Improve Teaching and Learning Conference at UOIT in Oshawa;
- a presentation to Women in Science and Engineering at Ottawa University; and
- an introduction to personal branding to the Queen’s MBA program while on tour in Toronto.

The audiences have been very different, yet the theme of ‘fear’ keeps rearing its head. We are in a period of great change and to many, change is scary. Social media is changing the way we can and are communicating. This in turn will change the way we teach and market ourselves in a competitive market place.

When we present the concept of putting yourself out there by blogging, using Twitter or even possibly producing video, we are often greeted with shock, horror and disbelief. But the power of these tools for communicating and connecting can’t be denied. The hard part is putting yourself out there and giving it a try.

I have noticed over the last week that students are getting their profiles ready for grading. They are changing photos to be more professional, blogging about more mature topics, and altering their positioning pitches to articulate the essence of their personal brands. In other words, they are experimenting and learning. In WhyHire.me our students can face their fears and discomfort in a safe environment. They need to learn about exposing themselves, articulating their offering, and defining their experiences with different forms of media. The program along with help and guidance from their professors, provides them with a place to learn and become comfortable with these new communication tools and trends (blogging, Twitter, photos, video, Delicious, linking, transparency, documenting experiences).

When they are ready to launch themselves into the working world, they simply change their profile setting, and the search engines will do the rest. Until then, they can experiment and become more comfortable with some of the latest communication tools and trends and convert their fears into confidence.

eBook Readers in Higher Ed…Counter Evolution?

The StarTribune offered up some future perspective on the growth of e-Book readers – purpose build machines for novels and textbook materials. Despite the rosy growth outlook by the quoted analyst, I am hesitant to think this is going to work in higher education.

Students today are sporting cell phones, netBooks and laptops that are redefining themselves every 6 months. When I visit a campus, it’s not unusual to see someone with an iPhone, switching to a laptop, then back to their phone. This generation of students likes to multi-task between music, Facebook and assignments. The challenge with introducing (or forcing) these students to buy purpose-built machines is they already have considerable computing power that gets cheaper and looks better each time a semester changes. A brand new HP Laptop now costs $650!

Will students want to switch to a purpose specific device they will need to care for, charge and maintain? Their teachers are posting LINKS, Powerpoints and PDFs to Blackboard or WebCT. Students today, are accustom to using industry standard browsers and school supplied desktop software in their labs. Unless Sony (Kindle) is a PC in waiting, then I for one think the likelihood of eBook readers going mainstream in higher ed is very low.

If I were making such decisions at a publishing company, I would consider user/buyer psychographics, the ubiquity of existing consumer devices, support issues and the total cost of equipping a student.

The Apple iPhone was a device that converged several products into one. Imagine if they had produced a purpose built text reader, so consumers or students could have books read to them?

Creativity Unleashed in the Whyhire.me Program

One of our students, who is privately developing her online personal brand within WhyHire.me, elected to poke something onto Youtube. I have to admit, I was impressed with the message, visuals and authenticity. It was fun to watch!

We were so thrilled to find this piece and see proof that our teachers are igniting passion within their classrooms. Keep up the great work – we truly do look forward to seeing more profiles turned public and shared across the web!

Teaching the Facebook Generation – How to Apply 21st Century Tools

Dr. Elaine Young posted a contributed article to BusinessWeek entitled Teaching the Facebook Generation. She made two points that map directly to our viewpoint at WhyHire.me.

1. Students do need to be immersed in how social media can effective business. They are going to be asked to implement online communications strategies – not learn them on the job.
2. Professors need to lead students by example by knowing the mechanics of social media and showing our students how to use them strategically for the good of their employers.

Our experience teaching WhyHire.me has revealed a considerable amount about today’s assumed social media mavens. Many of them are comfortable with taking a passive role in looking at social media, but getting them to create content, or more specifically, immerse themselves in industries issue while they are at school is one of our key challenges.

Another point I would make is, the underlying new tools are not just for communications students. Social bookmarking and micro-blogging are tremendous research tools that any student should be familiar with when they enter the workforce. Today’s 21st century student must be able to leverage content, experiences and other perspectives when drawing up alternative strategies or courses of action one could take. Turning to the Internet with a knowledge of social media, how to drive conversations and how to store and share content are basic tablestakes of this generation.

Professors and deans do need to step up and lead by example.  They need to embrace social media and demonstrate the business value their students can bring to the workforce. Social media will be as mainstream in business as is the photocopier and phone switch. Bring on the learning!

Starting our Co-Op

Amber Naslund, community manager at Radian6 and blogger at Altitude Branding, shared a post today, Social Media is a Co-op.  I like her way of thinking.

Two hours earlier, we were the discussing how our learning content at WhyHire.me has to evolve and develop through collaborative partnerships.  We do not claim to be experts in everything related to our program.  Our team offers great experience in teaching, marketing, coaching, communication tools & approaches and technology development but there are many other pieces to our training that we want to continue to develop and evolve, and we are looking for partners to assist.

So, from Amber’s perspective, I’m starting my co-op.  Over the past few weeks, I have been anxiously awaiting Sue Murphy’s eBook, Creating Video for the Web: Tips, tricks and tools for telling amazing stories.  Sue had been thinking of developing an eBook and we have been looking for some fresh and insightful content to share with our students on the subject of producing video for their profiles.  Sue is making the content of her eBook available on her website at no charge.

This eBook will be a great new resource for our students.  We hope to work with Sue in upcoming months to develop some customized content for our specific application and I will be putting together some new video assignments based on Sue’s content.  The co-op starts.

As Amber Naslund states in her post;

“They’ll build social media like a co-op. Driven by a team united voluntarily, toward common goals, and equally invested in the outcomes.

Collaboration is not just a feel-good buzzword. It’s the idea that our business is built more efficiently through shared knowledge, and shared responsibility.”

I look forward to more collaborative work with Sue Murphy and others with specialties and knowledge that will make the teaching and approach of WhyHire.me more powerful and engaging for our students.  We can’t do it alone.  Well, I guess we could, but like Amber, I don’t think that makes the best product, service or experience for our customers.

Introduce Digital Circles to your Class

We are all familiar with different use of the word circle in the context of human interaction. “He runs in that circle” suggests someone is plugging into a specific group. Likewise, “she has tight circle of friends”, would suggest the person is selective about friendships.

I have been introducing the concept of Digital Circles with students, professors and deans. It is a nice metaphor one can use to introduce people to the world of connecting with groups of like-minded online people inside WhyHire.me, Linkedin or Facebook groups, Ning, Twitter Lists, Meetup, you name the digital circle – they pop up every day!

Once you visualize the fact that many of these circles overlap because of our wide interests, students start to connect the dots as to why it’s so important to have a brand presence and make an effort to join relevant digital circles. It simply expands ones reach into the professional world and provides a tremendous source to learn from and share. Students using WhyHire.me get to bring select elements of their digital circles back to their WhyHire.me profile. Check out my Twitter Tab for my latest Tweets, My RSS for what I am reading or sharing and My Blog for my views on personal branding through post-secondary school. Click on my PURL to see how my online brand is presented.

I continue to connect with very switched on people thanks to these digital circles. It’s all the more satisfying to meet these people in person. Thank you all for extending our story into your circles. I will endeavor to do the same:)

Top Twitter Recuiter Talks to WhyHire.me

Just before Halloween, I connected with Dawn Mular, the world’s top recruiter on Twitter and CEO of the Helping Friends Career Network. Dawn was very easy to connect and interact with, given the nature of what she does. She takes a genuine interest in people, collaborative technologies and helping put people to work.

Many times over, school administrators and HR professionals ask why students should be coming out of school with an online brand. I was keen to get Dawn’s perspective on how social media has changed recruiting and how her clients react to seeing more than a traditional 2-page resume about a candidate.  For those that are interested in downloading the entire 10-minute podcast, simply click here.

For those interested in key sections, you can download and listen to key extracts:

Part 1

• How the Helping Friends Career Network got started
• The secret to her success becoming the top Twitter recruiter

Part 2

• Client reaction to social media in the recruiting world
• Stepping outside the traditional recruiting box – how and why
• Important employment trend – green businesses will mean more job / project opportunities

Part 3

• Advice to Educators and Leaders – become part of the movement
• Bring transparency and authenticity to the classroom